Points of information?

P

pam

Well-known member
When broiling in the oven, do you keep the oven door ajar? My mother always did and now I wonder why.

Suddenly my store is not keeping the corn tortillas in the dairy aisle, where they were previously kept. Why? Does that mean that I don't have to refrigerate them?

My mother used to line her cake pans with a round of aluminum foil. Cakes never stuck. Now recipes call for parchment paper. Any difference? Why do recipes call for buttering and flouring the parchment paper?

 
Some answers...

I had always been told, and saw in various cooking references, that the oven door should be open while broiling, so food wasn't roasting as it broiled.
However, my manual for the gas range in my new home states to "keep the oven door closed while broiling". No reason for this is given however.

Our local supermarkets have also been putting tortillas on the regular grocery shelves rather than in the refrigerator section. When I asked, I was told that they did not need to be refrigerated.

I used to use waxed paper to line cake pans and I never greased or floured that.
My parchment won't stay put in the pan unless I do grease first. My guess is that if the paper is then not greased, it may stick to the baked goods, but I have not tested that.

 
A few more

I only leave the door opened when broiling when I know something can go from brown to burned very quickly (which is actually a lot of what I broil).

As long as the cake I'm baking is baked at 350 or lower, I spray my pans with nonstick baking spray and used to use wax paper (so much cheaper than parchment). Now I have round silpats though - love them!

 
I was drawn to googling because I thought that in the olden days, the oven might turn off

using the broiler if the door was closed (basically overheating). This is referred to in one post.
But it now may be that the broiler won't stay ON if the door is ajar. Haven't tested this.

 
All new ovens do not have to have the door ajar while broiling, they are now vented outside... in my

case, it is vented through the bottom of the lower oven into the kitchen. There is also a fan, which vents. I asked about that 17 years ago when we remodeled our kitchen. I put in double Dacor ovens, so this has been in place for a long time.

I have always kept my tortillas i the fridge. I think they stay fresh longer, especially after opening.
Our stores here still keep them across from the fresh food and meat section on the end caps.

 
parchment vs waxed

I don't think waxed paper is intended to go in the oven. if you bake with waxed paper, the wax will melt at a relatively low temperature and leach into your food. It is not toxic but I wouldn't want to be eating it. It also has a lower ignite point than parchment so it can catch fire. Parchment in my experience will also both burn and stick at higher temperatures. I will make pizza in the oven using a peel. I like to put the pizza on parchment with no pan directly on the rack. It is tricky though more for the temperature than anything. Normally I like to get my oven up as high as possible for pizza but with parchment using this method regardless of using oil or not, the dough sticks to the parchment. If I get the oven past 450 or so the parchment also burns. For other things I notice sticking using a pan with or without oil if the temperature is past 425. So I've just stopped using it for some things.

 
Paper ignites at 451 degrees, Paul

I use parchment a lot. But never for pizza or other things where the oven has to be that hot. I don't use waxed paper in the oven- those days are over for me. I use silicone pans whenever I bake things that usually stick to pans- you just peel the silicone pan off and no residual sticks to it.

Only uncooked tortillas are in the refrigerator section at our stores. The cooked ones are always in the isles.

 
Right, thanks Ray Bradbury

the wax has a lower smoke point than paper and parchment paper is treated with silicone which is higher

 
Here, many brands of corn tortillas now have many things added to help preserve them. . .

in the "Olden Days" (resorting to geezer talk here; gawd help me, I'ma gettin' old), corn tortillas were just nixtamalized ground corn (masa) and water. If you stored these puppies out of the fridge, you would get dried or moldy tortillas muy pronto. Now I see various food acids added to corn tortillas to help preserve them and make them stay flexible, and alot have amylase added. Here are ingredients for Mission Estilo Casero White Corn Tortillas: Corn masa flour, water, cellulose gum, propionic acid (to preserve freshness), benzoic acid (to preserve freshness), phosphoric acid (preservative), guar gum, amylase. I think the amylase is added to make sure they have a "sweeter" corn flavor. This is the same enzyme that is in your saliva and It helps break down starches into sugars. I prefer the olden-style tortillas, but they are hard to find in a grocery store, even in a Mexican market. I have found them in tortillerias though; you can get really fresh tortillas here, sometimes warm and just, literally, minutes old--delish.

 
Here's a simple, simple hint for parchment from The Artful Baker: scrunch it up.

Yep...that's all you do and then the sharp edges don't poke into delicate raw crusts. I was looking at a photo of a par-baked crust and thought he was using cheesecloth. But in the text, he says to take a piece of parchment, crumple it up, then crumple it up again, and then again and finally, it will be nice and soft, but still do the job it's meant to do as well as fit nicely into curves.

I love when someone shows me something so simple.

 
Never in my life do I remember corn tortillas being refrigerated here

They have always been their own section in the bread aisle.

 
FYI, I never line my cake pans. I just spray, the end. I can’t think of the last time they weren’t

Perfect.

I recently fell in love with the spray coconut oil from Trader Joe’s, but I used to do it with just the plain canola oil or Pam spray. No flour or anything else. I do the same thing when I making quick breads. I just spray the pan let everything cool about 10 minutes and pop them right out.

The thing about cakes, to me anyway, is if they had some chunks missing I could fix it with frosting anyway, but I’ve never had to.

Also a nice trick for not getting domed cakes, Shout out to pastries like a pro blog for the tip, is to spray only the bottom and not the sides of the cake pan. This way the cake doesn’t slide down the sides while it’s baking and create a domed top. Just make sure you let it cool for a few minutes and then run a knife around the edge.

Oh and I always freeze my cooled cakes Before icing. This was a tip I learned way back from probably Gail’s, but it keeps the cake from crumbling and is a huge help when icing.

 
My late 2 cents worth...

You don't leave the oven ajar on modern ovens because they are already at a deficiency in temperature to actually broil. Electric coils, which is what most of us have these days whether we want to or not (we don't have a gas line to our kitchen) cannot really do the job that an old gas grill did. Leave the door close to get enough heat. I never leave the oven door ajar.

I make my tortillas when I need them. I never buy store bought. A bag of masa, some water, and a hot griddle? I'm good.

Lining the pans. I actually use wax instead of parchment. I have both and I always use parchment for cookie sheets. But I think the wax gives another layer of "I"m not sticking" to the equation. Plus it is so easy. I haven't had a cake stick to a pan in the 25 years I've been greasing the bottoms of the pan, lining with waxed, and then greasing and flouring. They pop out to perfection every time.

 
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